Canadian students return after shooting

TABER, Alberta (AP) - Students at a rural high school returned to class Tuesday, a week after a student was killed in the first fatal high school shooting in Canada in more than 20 years.

The shooting at W.R. Myers High School in the western Canadian province of Alberta came just a week after two teen-agers gunned down 12 fellow students and a teacher at a high school in Littleton, Colo., before killing themselves.

Police refused to say last week whether they believed the shooting was influenced by events in Colorado.

A 14-year-old boy was charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder in the Canadian shooting.

It left one student dead and another seriously wounded in Taber, a farming town of about 8,000 people located 185 miles southeast of Calgary and 50 miles north of the Canadian border with Montana.

The suspect, who was not identified because he is a juvenile, is accused of firing four shots from a .22-caliber rifle, police said. He was to appear in juvenile court Thursday.

Police identified the dead student as Jason Lang, 17. A wreath was placed at the spot in the school hallway where he died.

His parents, the Rev. Dale Lang and his wife, Diane, greeted students returning to school Tuesday.

"I'm a little nervous, but I'm OK with it," Colby Cannady, 15, said just before the 9 a.m. bell rang. "It's going to be hard to walk by the spot where the kid got shot. Every time I see the spot, I kind of break down."

The other victim, also 17, was to undergo a third round of surgery to remove a .22-caliber slug near his spinal cord.